If you haven’t noticed, we’ve had quite a few new additions to the Feministing crew over the past year. Zerlina Maxwell, who also writes for Ebony, The Grio and Loop 21 , is one of these new contributors. When she’s not writing her amazing commentary on the presidential debates and much more for this site, she also attends law school [...]

Natalia García Pasmanick, aka Favi, is a San Francisco-based vocalist, musician, rapper, performance artist , and visual artist . Raised in a musical family, she grew up singing Latin American and Iberian traditional music like guaguanco or tonada carvajal as well as being classically trained at San Francisco Girls’ Chorus. A mujer descendant of campesinas living in diaspora, she uses art as a way to voice her [...]

Marienne Cuison, known to friends as YenYen, is the Chair of Anakbayan Silicon Valley. Anakbayan (translated as “children of the nation”)  is a comprehensive national democratic youth organization based in the Philippines that has chapters all over the world. It fights for social and economic justice for Filipino youth in the Philippines and abroad and is part [...]

If you haven’t heard of Feminist Ryan Gosling yet, you’ve probably been living under a rock. Since the first post in October, FRG has been making huge waves throughout the blogosphere. FRG has been featured everywhere from Jezebel, Ms. Magazine , Huffington Post , Marie Claire , TIME, Newsweek and of course, yours truly, Feministing! Inspired from the original meme “Hey Girl” featured on Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling , University [...]

Michael Kaufman’s work has been pivotal on the male front to end gender inequality around the world. Founder of the white ribbon campaign , the “largest effort in the world of men working to end violence against women,” Kaufman is living proof that men can and should be as invested and engaged in feminism as women. His recent [...]

In my interview last week with Ina May Gaskin, I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to ask an extra question for our readers. I asked Ina May what could our readers do to learn more on the topic of bodily autonomy and birth, and she suggested watching the two videos after the jump, of an elephant [...]

As promised , this week’s Feministing Five is with the legendary Ina May Gaskin. Ina May is the famed “midwife of modern midwifery” and has revolutionized the way the world views this ancient practice since the emergence of her seminal book ” Spiritual Midwifery .” This past month, Ina May was awarded the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize in Sweden called The [...]

Rose Lyn Castro is the Project Director for S.P.E.A.R. (Samahang Pilipino Education and Retention) at the University of California, Los Angeles. After attending four years at UCLA as an undergraduate and doing two years of Teach for America, she got hired back to the same organization where she started doing campus organizing. Samahang Pilipino is the main [...]

Layel Camargo’s involvement with activism and social justice work began when ze was in high school. From a very early age, Layel recognized the differences between the community ze grew up in, which was predominantly low-income people of color neighborhoods, and the white, wealthier neighborhoods around heir. Layel saw a lot of people close to heir [...]

Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Representative from the 2 nd District of Wisconsin, announced in September that she is running for Senate in next year’s election . Representative Baldwin is a pioneer in many ways; as the first woman ever elected to Wisconsin’s Congress, she is also the first openly lesbian Representative and first openly gay non-incumbent elected to U.S. Congress. [...]

If you read this blog often, I’m positive you know who Jaclyn Friedman is already. Longtime friend of Feministing, Friedman’s work as a writer, activist and educator continues to influence the work of feminists everywhere. She co-edited (along with Jessica Valenti) ” Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape ,” and [...]

Preeti Mangala Shekar is a transnational activist, feminist and radio-journalist. Born and raised in India, she went on to study journalism and work as a reporter. Through her experiences as a journalist in India, she became politicized, particularly because of what she witnessed there in terms of patriarchy and caste. In her early 20s, after [...]

Nicole Roberts is a professor at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad where her work centers on Hispanic feminisms. Originally from Trinidad, Roberts’s studies took her all over the world. She spent her high school and undergraduate years in Canada, got her M.A. at Florida State, and did her doctorate at the [...]

Annie Fukushima is a long time activist and academic. She’s been working around the issue of human trafficking and she’s a huge believer in the power of praxis– the combination of action and theory (especially interesting in light of this week’s post on the topic !). A PhD student at Cal Berkeley in the Ethnic Studies department, [...]

As a young activist in my early 20′s, I’ve stressed over where I want to take my life time and again. I even wrote about this issue my senior year of college. This stress comes in ebbs and flows with moments of epiphany screaming “Oh my god, You are ONLY 23! Chill out!” and other moments [...]

When I was college, I stumbled upon a book called “Letters from Young Activists” that moved me to tears. For the first time I read about experiences that reflected my own, and it really influenced my politicization. Kenyon Farrow was one of the editors of this book. I wrote a review on the book on my [...]

Last week, I interviewed Anita Hill for our Feministing Five series to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her famous testimony before the U.S. Senate. The interview was filled with so much goodness that I had to write a follow-up post with more of her insights, which you’ll find below. And don’t forget, if you’re in the New [...]

This month marks the 20 th anniversary of Anita Hill’s testimony during the confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. It’s an important time to note the anniversary, with the recent SlutWalks to end sexual violence and cases of sexual assault implicating top leaders around the world, including Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Julian Assange and the Australian Defence Force [...]

I met Jean one sunny afternoon while she was in the midst of making this video . New America Media was holding a conference called Children in Poverty, and they wanted Jean to tell her story. Jean is a Pacific Islander, born and raised all over the San Francisco Bay Area and currently residing in the Hunters Point [...]